


lookin' for some crazy-cool

by stover



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bonding, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post VLD Season 7, Recovery, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: After the battle, Hunk gets the downtime he's so wanted ever since he was shot into space by a magic robot lion. Surprisingly, he finds himself itching to leave.Grinning, Pidge climbed over Hunk, cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted into the wall. “Come and catch these hands, mama’s boy!”“No. Nope, not doing that today, sorry—” Hunk immediately yanked Pidge away from the wall. As he did, her knees dug sharply into his gut. He grimaced and took a moment to will the pain away before he took a deep breath and raised his voice a little. “Sorry, Keith! Shiro! Keith’s mom! And, uh, Blade of Marmora guy, leader, sir! We’ll behave now.”





	lookin' for some crazy-cool

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill: "Pidge accidentally falling on Hunk's lap"

Hunk woke up with a start.

Disoriented and groggy, it took him a few moments to make out the shape of ceiling tiles above his head, and even longer still to realize he was no longer floating on a marshmallow cloud in a cotton candy kingdom. He was just in a boring old bed in a boring old room in a boring old ship.

Scratch that last part—he wasn’t on a boring old ship. He was aboard the Atlas. That thing was crazy cool. Sorry,  _she_  was crazy cool.

Hunk could use some more crazy cool things right about now. He’d been bedridden for about a week, and while he definitely felt all the aches and pains he was currently plagued with (more than usual, which, if that sounded scary,  _yes,_  it  _was,_  because he’d had to ride out probably five, or maybe even six, explosions), he still wanted clearance to leave.

It was weird, thinking that he wanted to get up and be out already. Not out, as in, “out there,” because he could definitely use a break from joyriding through space. But “out there,” as in, outside.

Before, he thought he’d easily give up anything (even breakfast, for the rest of his life! Or, like, a month) just to be able to stay in bed all day, and read or play games or tinker around with whatever spare parts the medics could smuggle into his room (the latter was definitely not part of his original daydream, but it was still going in!). So yeah, there was a time when all he wanted to do was stay in and do nothing. Now? Not so much.

Maybe it was from having traveled through space, from speeding through the galaxy or hopping in and out of wormholes. Maybe it was from being a paladin, from fighting bad guys and saving planets and stuff. Probably both, to be honest; he was pretty sure it was both.

Maybe, if it was both, it was from seeing so many different people, alien or not, and seeing whole new worlds, whole new cultures, and whole new recipes. Seriously, there were a lot of new recipes out there, some of them probably almost as good as his uncle’s cooking, or even his mom’s cookies. Like, right now? He really wanted some Glyppelstach, which always reminded him of hash except it was crunchier and made your entire mouth feel all tingly. And before you even ask— _no,_  he wasn’t  _allergic._ And even if he was, he’d had it probably a million times and he was still alive, so he couldn’t be that allergic to it. Hopefully.

But anyway, yeah—new cultures, new worlds. New people. There was so much more to life now. Everything he knew before seemed so small, and kind of insignificant, sort of. Family was still one of the bigs, and so was food, yeah. But the little things in life that used to gnaw at him, all those spooks and creeps and scares—all that stuff that once bothered him here on Earth now was just… cosmic dust. Like Coran used to say, there was nothing like a good ol’ “staring into the eyes of a giant Weblum right before it tried to eat you” that chased away all of life’s little problems.

That, or driving head-first right into an explosion. Really made you think about the bigger things in life. The stuff that was important: family, and friends. Lance. Pidge. Keith. Shiro, Allura, Coran, Shay, Romelle—everyone he’s ever fought with or fought for. There was so much more to living than just himself hiding from his fears. There was so much more to life he wanted to see.

That was the thought that finally drew him out of bed. There was a rush of, of something (exuberance, maybe) that made him suddenly tear the sheets right off him, swing his bare feet to the floor and embrace the chill seeping through the thick callouses of his feet, and take in the chill of the night in his dark and empty room, and—

Shoot, shoot,  _shoot—_  Cold, cold, cold; really,  _really_  cold; it was freezing!

Hunk dove right back into bed, shivering like a madman, his teeth clattering and everything. He cocooned himself in his blankets, doing his best to look like a swaddled baby.

He warmed himself up a while, listening to the calm, still silence of his room. He could hear the gentle hum of Atlas’ engine rumbling smoothly, and Lance snored in his own room not too far away. Keith was up; this, he knew from the soft murmurs through the wall — Keith was right next door, after all — and it was very Keith-like to be up at —  _(what time was it? oh, it’s almost 3)_  — two-forty  _(two forty?!)_  in the morning talking with —  _(hang on a second, is that— yes, yes it is)_  — talking with Shiro and Kolivan, and maybe his mom  _(yup; yes, ma’am, there she is)._

Thinking about Keith getting to spend time with his mom made his chest swell with joy. The guy had been alone his whole life, and now he had his mom, his (sort of) dad, a nice dog (space wolf), and Shiro. And the team. And everyone else that came with the team. Thinking about how full Keith’s own life had ended up, and of the soft smile they all got to see so often now, brought a smile to Hunk’s face.

Still grinning, Hunk flung himself back on his bed. Space was a magical place, he thought. Space was beautiful. Space was wonderful. Space, Hunk realized slowly, was like home.

“Whatcha doing?”

_“GYAA—”_

Hunk sat up so fast, he ran head-first into a wall. Except he was still in bed, so he wasn’t exactly running, and the wall wasn’t really a wall per se. It was Pidge.

Pidge!

“Oh, man, Pidge! Shoot, I’m— Wow, that really hurts— I’m sorry, Pidge, I didn’t mean to— Oh  _wow,_  that  _really_  hurts. What’s in your head, metal?”

Pidge said nothing. She made a pained groan, hunching over with her eyes screwed shut. The only indication that she wasn’t, you know, dying or spilling her brains out was the hand that came up against his face in a sharp gesture right as he was rambling, indicating that he needed to shut up.

Which he did, because, y’know, Pidge.

Grumbling, Pidge rubbed at her forehead. Hunk caught a few curses slip out every now and then, some of them in Altean. After what deemed to be an appropriate amount of time, Hunk tried seeing if she was okay.

“Sorry. You, uh, alright there?”

Pidge scowled, squinting and slowly lifting her head up. “Guess I really asked for that, huh?” was her deadpan response. “Man, that smarts. Geez.”

Hunk snorted. “Yeah? Well, that wasn’t a walk in the park for me, either. It was more like… a battering ram through the— No, it was like the— like the wall had feet, and it was running at me.”

“Don’t you mean, the wall was running at  _me?”_  Pidge laughed, shoving at Hunk. “What were you all happy about anyway?” She grinned knowingly. “Were you thinking about Shay?”

“Nah, I was thinking about Romelle.”

“Seriously?” Pidge’s eyes widened. Then, she went back to grinning. “She’s cute.”

A guffaw tumbled past Hunk’s lips. “No!” He laughed, probably way too loud, “I mean, yeah, she  _is_  cute and all, and she’s nice and she can kick ass, but, haha… I was just joking. Who do you think I am, Lance?”

Pidge snorted, eyes crinkling at the corners as she laughed. It made her look adorable. She sobered up real fast, though, a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, speaking about Lance,” she whispered connivingly, leaning in, “I heard he sent Allura an entire bouquet.  _And_ a card — handmade.”

Hunk felt his eyebrows shoot up. “No way. What— What did Allura say? Did she say anything? She didn’t make fun of him or anything, did she? She’s not like that, right?”

“No way! Dude, Hunk—” Pidge grinned madly.  _“—I think she likes him back.”_

Hunk knew his mouth was opening and shutting—partly because he could feel it, but also because he could hear himself gasping each time he opened his mouth and a word died inside. Finally, he figured out how to speak. “Ohmygod. Oh my  _god,_  that’s insane.”

“Right??” Pidge collapses backwards on the bed. “Man, now I can’t make fun of him for using bad pick-up lines anymore. Apparently in  _this_  reality, they work!”

Hunk rubbed at his forehead and frowned. “Yeah, well, you know. Wear ‘em down, or whatever. Something like that. Maybe?”

Pidge glanced at him. “You okay?”

“Uh, yeah? I mean— I just… I thought he was over her. I thought he was, like, finally moving on, or whatever. I thought— Well, I dunno. It’s stupid. Never mind.”

Hunk felt the bed creak as Pidge sat up on her arms. “Is this bothering you? We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“Oh! No, nonono, I just— I thought he liked, uhhh…” Hunk gestured to the wall behind his head, a room still full of soft voices. Which, thank god it was, because if it weren’t and Keith actually heard this conversation, that was gonna be really, really weird. Or not weird. Maybe he was just overthinking things. Again.

Pidge shot up, looking wide-eyed and grinning like a fool. “Wait, what?  _What??”_  She grabbed the blanket and shoved it in her mouth, legs kicking spastically (almost hitting Hunk) and badly muffling her frantic screeching.

Hunk knew it was badly muffed because— A, he was right there, and B, a firm knock rapped on the wall behind his head.

 _“Pidge,”_  Keith’s voice called from the next room,  _“Keep it down.”_

A couple other voices filtered through  _(“Isn’t that Hunk’s room?” “What’s Pidge doing in Hunk’s room, it’s past 3-AM”)_  but neither of them cared because Pidge was giggling and giddy like never before.

Hunk was laughing, too. Pidge’s excitement and shrill laughter was contagious. “What’s with you? You’re like a five-year-old on Christmas day.”

“Hunk, you don’t understand!” Pidge was trying to whisper, but her giddiness got the better of her. It was only when her excitement almost had her bouncing right off the bed that she remember to dial it back down. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking,” she declared prodigiously.

Hunk grinned. “Yeah? You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Well, I was thinking that maybe—”

“Maybe,” Hunk whispered, a gentle reminder to keep quiet.

“Maybe,” Pidge whisper-shouted, which was good enough for both of them at this point, “Maybe Lance… has a crush on—”

“Keith.” “Shiro!”

Muffled voices came through the wall.  _“You rang?” “God, it’s late, Pidge. Go to sleep!”_

Neither cared about the voices coming through the wall, because obviously there was a huge misunderstanding here.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—” Hunk had a record to straighten out, and priority mode was ON. “Hold up. You are  _so_  wrong.”

“What? I’m not wrong,  _you’re_  wrong!”

Three firm knocks banged against the wall.  _“Pidge, stop creeping on Hunk.” “Yeah, before we call a medic to haul you back to bed.”_

Grinning, Pidge climbed over Hunk  _(whoa, careful— ow, ow, his thigh, ow—),_  cupped her hands around her mouth, and shouted into the wall. “Come and catch these hands, mama’s boy!”

“No. Nope, not doing that today, sorry—” Hunk immediately yanked Pidge away from the wall. As he did, her knees dug sharply into his gut. He grimaced and took a moment to will the pain away before he took a deep breath and raised his voice a little. “Sorry, Keith! Shiro! Keith’s mom! And, uh, Blade of Marmora guy, leader, Kolivan-sir! We’ll behave now.”

“Killjoy.” Pidge slapped a hand on Hunk’s back. “You’re lucky I like you, buddy. Otherwise, you would’ve gotten a knee to the face. Or worse.”

Hunk groaned, rubbing at his face. “Why me,” he monologued, no real hurt in his words. In seconds, he was grinning again and hoisting Pidge over his shoulder, who gave a yelp. “Oops, sorry. My hand slipped.” Then, he launched a tickle assault at her sides.

Pidge shrieked with laughter. She flailed her legs and lightly pounded his back. “Unhand me, you fiend!” she cried between peals of laughter. “I’ll knock you out so hard, you’ll wake up halfway to another galaxy!”

“Oh?” Hunk snorted as he laughed, reaching behind him with one hand to grab both of Pidge’s wrists. “What, with these tiny little things?”

Pidge chomped on his shoulder.

Hunk yowled, throwing off the cackling little girl and patting his shoulder. “What the quiznak— Pidge!” It didn’t hurt, but it was weird and Hunk didn’t expect Pidge to fight weird.

Then again, she  _did_  tackle Bob to the ground during a game of mini-golf.

Pidge howled with laughter, rolling over to her side on the bed. “Your face!” she screeched, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as she struggled to catch a breath. “Ohmygod— You should’ve seen— You should’ve seen your face!”

Suddenly, the door burst open.

Hunk grabbed his IV drip stand (wow, this was heavy) and held it up while Pidge practically climbed up to his shoulders and hoisted the toolbox he kept on his nightstand over her head. Whoever was coming after them, Hunk and Pidge were gonna make sure they were gonna regret it.

But there wasn’t any danger waiting for them at the door.

It was only Lance.

“Would you two zip it?? It’s, like, 4-AM and I can’t get my eight hours of sleep if you two keep yackin’ it up in here like a couple of— of— a couple of banshees!”

Variations of  _“sorry”_  were practically at the tip of their tongues when Shiro decided to add his two cents.

_“Tell ‘em, Lance!”_

Immediately, Pidge and Hunk shouted back.

“Uh, rude??” “Why don’t  _you_  shut up?!”

Instead of Shiro responding like they’d thought he would, Keith was the next person to shout.

_“Lance? Lance! I still want my jacket back!”_

Hunk and Pidge both turned on Lance, who looked utterly clueless. They all spoke at once.

"What jacket?" “Why do you have Keith’s jacket?” “Didn’t I throw that out?”

Now, it was Hunk’s turned to be stared at. It didn’t last long.

A fist banged on the wall.  _“You threw out my jacket?! Hunk!”_

Hunk winced hard, looking back and forth between his friends and the wall. “Uh, yeah, I, uh— I thought he—” Hunk sighed. “I thought you didn’t need it anymore?”

_“Why in any part of the galaxy did you think I didn’t need it anymore?”_

Hunk chewed on his lip and twiddled his thumbs sheepishly. “Cause of your glow up?” Behind him, Pidge and Lance snickered noisily.

_“My what? What’s a— Shiro, why are you laughing? Wait, is that Lance laughing? Why are you laughing— Hunk, what did you say?”_

Hunk grimaced, teeth clenching nervously together. “Uhhhh… Hunk’s not here at the moment. Leave your name and number and, uh, he’ll get back to you as soon as possible!”

_“I know you’re there!”_

“Nope! No, I’m not! Goodnight!” Hunk rapped his knuckles against the wall as if to say goodbye, quickly turned around, wriggling beneath the sheets. The movement made Pidge lose balance. With a shaky yelp, she tipped over his shoulder, toolbox and all.

Lance, who’d tried to grab the toolbox before it fell, ended up holding it upside-down and being the catalyst for a waterfall of metal tools. One of the wrenches knocked into Pidge, who’d crashed face-first into the blankets between Hunk’s legs, while the shower of tools landed what felt like a 10-hit combo to Hunk’s family jewels.

As Pidge whined and clutched the back of her head, Hunk wheezed and wriggled out from under the pile of what were basically weapons and tried not to cry too loud as he hunched over himself.

The commotion was apparently concerning enough to make Krolia chime in after Shiro and Keith.

_“What was that??” “You guys okay?” “…That sounded like a bunch of metal.”_

Lance, spitting apologies a million miles a minute, answered them first. “Uh, everything’s fine! Just— Pidge had a toolbox and she— I tried to help, but I, uh… Well, long story short, we’re okay.” Lance started sweeping tools back into the box and spoke over the noisy clatter. “Maybe a bruise here or there. And wounded pride, sort of.” Lance set the box on the floor beside Hunk’s bed and stood up. With a flashy grin, Lance waved and headed for the door. “Anyway, great catching up with you, team, but  _I_  am ex _haus_ ted. Night, guys!”

Lance left, whistling a tune that echoed softly in the empty hall.

A calm stillness returned to his room. Keith’s room was still thrumming with low voices, and Lance’s snoring started up soon enough, the familiar sound fill the hall with comfort. By the time the voices next door dwindled down to silence, Hunk had crawled back under the covers while Pidge lay on her stomach over half over his chest. She was chuckling at something on her phone, the dimmed screen casting a soft orange-yellow light on her face.

“Something good on?”

“Eh, just watching the mice run around in the hangars. It’s funny to watch the Ares team freaking out over Altean mice. Wanna see?”

He didn’t. Pidge’s response had brought a sudden, unexpected wave of dismay. In the brief moment of laughter, he’d forgotten why they were all here like this in the first place.

Earth had no news station or— or sitcoms, or talk shows anymore. Earth had lost all those things during the Galra’s siege against them. Any communication restored on Earth was filtered through alien tech, and Earth was too far away to receive any decent shows, except for Tele-kree game shows, which were all really lame and sort of offensive now. Heck, they didn’t get the Belschna channel! Every quadrant of the galaxy got the Belschna channel, even if nobody wanted it.

The only thing from Earth they could readily get were streams from the Atlas-cams, or visual updates from the Garrison feed. Nothing fun. Useful, sure. But not fun.

“Man, I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Yeah, me too.” Pidge tucked her phone away and roll off, propping herself up on her forearms. “I promised Ina and Nadia a ride in the lions. Wanna come with?”

The thought of getting back in his lion made his heart soar, but also rattled his soul. Don’t get him wrong, he loved flying Yellow, and he loved Yellow with all his heart. But what if he got in Yellow and something showed up? Like that evil Galra robot that came out of nowhere? What if there were more? Or worse, what if Lotor was actually alive this whole time, and it was him behind it? That thing kind of looked like the Sincline ships, it wasn’t totally out of left field. O-Or! What if it was the witch this whole time? What if even Zarkon was alive, somehow? What if—

“Hey, you okay? You look kind of sick.”

Hunk groaned and sat up against the headboard, dumping his head in his hands. “You don’t think Zarkon’s still out there, do you?”

Pidge gave a nervous laugh. “Uh. What?”

“I mean — We thought he was dead once, right? What if he’s alive? Again? A-And— And then there’s Haggar, the witch, who’s got all this magic and stuff, and Allura brought Shiro back to life, who says Haggar can’t bring Zarkon back to life? Or Lotor? Or the mall cop? Is— Is the mall cop dead? Was he even dead? If he wasn’t dead, then why’d he show up on Bob’s show? Oh my god, what if he’s secretly one of the top-ranking generals in the Galra Empire? What if he’s secretly Sendak? What if—”

Pidge grabbed him by the cheeks and gave him a stern look. “Hunk, you’re talking crazy. Let’s take a deep breath, okay? And chill. Can you do that? Let’s do that. Take a deeeep breath—”

Hunk sucked in a huge gulp of air.

Pidge patted one of his cheeks. “Good. And now, let’s chill.” She sat cross-legged in his lap, her phone already out in her hands. “Here, let’s watch something fun. James freaks out the most when he sees the mice, Ina’s a close second. Ryan’s boring, so let’s just skip camera 14— …Hunk? You can breathe, now.”

All the air he kept trapped in his lungs blew out like a zephyr wind. It felt like a hot air balloon was deflating in his chest. He’d never been in a hot air balloon before, but he kind of, sort of had an idea of what that’s like, even if he didn’t actually know what it was like — it was the idea that counted, really—

A soft touch against his shoulder made him look down. Pidge was leaning against the headboard next to him, her cheek on his shoulder. There was a frown on her face. “You okay?”

Hunk didn’t know what to say. Should he lie? Deal with it another day? But that wouldn’t do any good—what if something  _did_  happen, say right now, and they had to go back in their lions? Then they’d fight, and hopefully win, and then it’d just be back to square one.

“Hunk?”

Pidge shifted, sitting on her knees on the bed instead of his lap, and looking right at him. Her searching gaze left his face, and wound up staring out the window and up at the night sky.

“We’re doing what we have to.” Pidge shifted again, bringing her knees up and crossing her arms over them. “That’s what you said back then, right?”

Hunk could tell she wasn’t searching for answers. So he didn’t give her one. Instead, he leaned forward and drew her into a tight hug, complete with loving grunt and happy, satisfied sigh. 

“Don’t tell the others.”

It slipped out unintentionally, and Hunk felt his chest tighten when Pidge stilled in his arms. A Lance-like bout of quick thinking saved him. “But you’re my favorite,” he added quickly, hugging her again and making it sound like a complete thought.

Pidge giggled, jabbing her elbow into his gut and fighting her way free. She popped out of his hold only to lunge forward to squeeze him in a giant hug of her own. “I won’t tell,” she promised.

He squeezed her back. “Thanks, Pidge.”

They fell asleep together, curled against each other with Pidge still in Hunk’s lap, the sounds of Lance snoring and Keith whispering with Shiro slowly fading away to silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a prompt or say hi; "s-tover" on tumblr.


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